Quick Start Guide - Starting Play

[desolation0]

I would like folks to enjoy Wiz7/Gold as much as I have, though it may be a bit late for that. I still have my Archives copy of the game and can't post official guides without buying on Steam, so I'll just toss this here. If someone would like to toss this into the Guide section, feel free if you give appropriate credit.

This guide covers the beginner dungeon and making your way into the first city. It is spoilerific, but nothing matters to the main plot yet. You should get into the habit of exploring around, and saving fairly often.

I am assuming you've already done some of the tweaking to get the game running appropriately. If you are having trouble there are fixes for just about everything. It will just take some legwork. Start at www.softwarespecialties.com,

When you first start out, there are four possible areas you can head to. Either you try to cross the field of flowers, follow the road the other way into town, head for the ladder down into the starter dungeon, or head off into the wilderness.

The field is a shortcut you'll learn to cross later in the game. You can try it now, and can get a tidbit of lore out of it. As playing this game is significantly about the lore, I'd recommend it.

There is a strong fight blocking the way into town, and a guard who wants to know what business you have there. If you have no business, you can try fighting him. Good luck with that.

The remaining options are the starter dungeon and the wilderness. I recommend the starter dungeon first, with the wilderness either once you're past the first level, or before heading into town.

Starter Dungeon - Level 1
Once you take the ladder down, you'll find yourself in a square room with four offshoots in each of the cardinal directions. The direction we want gets to a T intersection as you enter. If you find the grate, it's one more to the right from the ladder. To the right from that intersection is the most important resource in the early game. It's a fountain.

The fountain is the quickest source of health, stamina, and mana in the game, and finding them around is somewhat rare. It's often quicker to run all the way to the nearest fountain than to rest (which is something that can be corrected with mods). Generally branch all your exploration of the rest of the floor, and even into the wilderness and city, from this fountain at the start.

One of the branches has a grate we'll get back to. Each of the three others have at least one interesting feature you'll need to use the Search button to activate. One will give you a bit of information that the guard of the city might be interested in. The other two are hidden passages behind walls. The buttons are fairly apparent, if you're looking straight at the wall. It's one of the things about classic rpgs that you may be rewarded for noticing things like this. The Detect Secret spell will be a lifesaver if you're not used to this. Just look for the twinkle in the eye.

Each of the chests is likely to be trapped. I hope you have a natural chest popper with some Skullduggery. Opening a chest without setting off the trap involves inspecting it to find out what trap is on it. Hit the inspect button while it is red and you'll set off the trap. Yellow doesn't set anything off. While it is green you'll get some info about the mechanisms of the trap in the form of asterisks, dashes, and question marks.

Asterisks mean that component is part of the trap. Dashes mean it's not. Questions mean your character isn't sure. Improving your Skullduggery helps the diagnosis, and also improves the amount of time the random color is on green or yellow. Eventually you'll have spells to help your diagnosis, or bypass chest and door locks entirely.

Once you have the info, match it to the traps in the list. If you figure which is the right trap, go in the order the mechanisms are numbered to disarm that trap. Again you have to click when the random color is Green to be successful. Yellow is neutral. Red sets off the trap. Worst comes to worst, either go to the save you made before you opened the chest, or make a mad dash for the fountain.

The chests will likely hold your first unidentified loot. If you have a character with Lore, they may give you more info. Otherwise you can wait til you have the Identify spell. You can equip the weapons and armor without identifying them. Nothing should be cursed - yet.

One chest will hold the key to the second floor. It's distinguishable from other keys by not having a count of those remaining, even if it's not yet identified. Plot item keys generally all have this feature. With that, you're ready for level two. I'd recommend the Wilderness first though.

Wilderness -
You will only be able to go through a limited section of the wilderness. It essentially acts as another short wing of a dungeon, just with trees. You'll eventually have to head through the city to advance the plot. The reward for heading this way is both unique and highly useful as you continue along.

I like to go this way after the first level of the starter dungeon as it opens a fairly clear path back to the fountain, and there is a tough fight over this way you may want to be prepared for. If you see something about crunching bones, you best be ready for your next step. After that, just follow the path along until you come on another chest, with a small bay to your left.

This chest contains the Journey Map Kit and some other random gear. The map kit is unique in the game, so if you lose it it's gone.

In the DOS version, you have to increase the Mapping skill of a character to put it to full use. Open your inventory and hit use and your map of the current area, at least the tiles you've stepped on, will be revealed. Higher skill displays stuff like doors and walls and some other points of interest. The Wizard Eye spell will again do in a pinch.

In the Gold version, having the map kit automatically pops up a map window that refreshes as you go along. You don't receive increased detail from the mapping skill of your party. It's one of the only distinguishing features from a gameplay perspective between the two versions.

The only other thing to do out here is to go swimming. If your whole party doesn't have at least 10 Swimming skill you WILL drown that character. At best, you'll drain your stamina after just one or two tiles, and need to rest for a long time or run to the fountain. You may also run into some extremely strong, for this point, monsters in the water. I'd recommend waiting a bit and swimming in some other areas first instead.

The best reward from the water doesn't involve actually swimming in it...

Starter Dungeon - Level 2 -
Using the plot key, you can now open the grate blocking the last wing of the first floor. There's not much do do here til you reach the last room. The monsters are tougher than the first floor, so be prepared. In the last room you'll find quite a difficult fight against an undead horror.

Tough, that is, if you didn't pick up a particular second tier spell on your Priest/Lord/Valkyrie already. Second tier spells come at somewhere areound 15 points into the appropriate skill. Getting to that point is part of why I like to hit the wilderness before the second floor.

The chest here is the most dangerous you'll be likely to find early in the game. Reloading a save may be your only option. The rewards are quite useful, however. Particularly noteworthy are the amulet, and one of the red potions.

The amulet is likely to be your only way to revive a deceased character for the early portion of the game. It serves well as a backup later on if your holy characters happen to croak first. Just be warned it has limited charges. Like so many other things, you'll eventually get a spell to get around this particular limitation.

The red potion, if you have enough skill or the appropriate spell to identify it, is a Cherry Bomb. I find it particularly useful for the next bit.

Entering New City -
What classic adventure would be complete without a carefully laid ambush by a band of bandits? Unfortunately I just spoiled the surprise. Taking out the group is tough without the use of spells that target the whole group. Thankfully you've got a few levels under your belt now and either have some appropriate spells either learned or have a handy Cherry Bomb ready to go.

The cherry bomb is actually a few power levels higher than a typical character cast Psionic Fires at this point. That little dice counter on the casting window increases the force of a spell, but costs more and is somewht more likely to backfire. Potions don't backfire though, and this one is somewhere around a rank 3 bonb if I remember correctly. Use it now before you just outclass its power.

You may find yourself facing more than one group. This is based in part on a random battle generator, and in part on just how much leveling you've done with your party by that point. That's right, a game from 1992 had encounters scale to the party. Actually 6 did that too, but still quite impressive. As you clear a group, the ones behind will move ahead and come into melee range. Spells can target individual enemies, a group, or practically the whole pack.

Having dispatched the bandits, it's time to head into New City. Maybe use the fountain first.

The citizens of the town are a bit beefier than most things you've faced to this point. Especially the Savant Guards. The gentleman guarding the town entrance can probably wreck you single handed, if you give him good reason.

This will likely be your first interaction with the NPC Text parser. It's not nearly as advanced as several examples before and after in gaming history. You'll want to keep track of interesting topics in a journal. Just typing in the topic will get you most of the info you could hope for. There are also simple general words like "who", "rumors" and "lore" that will get you more general info. Watch out with "lore" though, as you share everything your party knows as well (and I'm still not sure what they mean by this). In this case, all you have to do is mention "Paluke" from that note you found, and you'll get your foot in the door.

Welcome to New City.

[sp1cychick3n]

Thanks for this! Really appreciate the time you put into it.

[Claes]

Just finished griinding in the level 2 dungeon enough to beat the boss/undead horror, and am about to try the chest. Most of my time has been spent rolling characters... figure I have a decent party and once I hit the starter dungeon the nostalgia kicked in big time. Grinding for experience points down there was a pleasure. And seeing the fountain? Oh man... Can't wait to get to New City again ;)